Several years ago I was invited to participate in a mastermind group. I had never been involved in a mastermind before, but I had read about them in Napoleon Hill's book, "Think and Grow Rich." So, I was eager to participate in a group myself. This particular group was comprised of 5 women and the focus was real estate investing. I met Kim, the woman who invited me to join the group, at a real estate investing seminar. I was a relatively new investor at the time and thought this was an opportunity to learn more about investing, team up with other women who were investing, and jumpstart my real estate investing business.
In theory it should have worked that way. In reality it did not. We met weekly and we quickly realized that some of us were more serious than others. Some of the members did not show up on a regular basis. Others seemed more interested in spending our time together socializing instead of focusing on the business at hand. Kim, who had organized the group, tried very hard to set an agenda and add value to the group. But we quickly realized that if all the members were not 100% focused on the same goals, it just was not going to work. The mastermind group disbanded after a few months.
This experience taught me a few lessons. While there is definitely value in masterminding with others, it's important to make sure you are all focused on getting the same thing out of the relationship. Ground rules are also important. My friend Lorrie Morgan -Ferraro of Red Hot Copy says her mastermind group members all must agree to participate as if they had each spend $100,000 to be in the group. How's that for making sure your members are serious?
I do believe in masterminding. In fact, I've built masterminding into my Extreme Marketing Makeover Program and I've gotten really good feedback from the participants. They love being able to work with other solo-professionals who are facing some of the same challenges in marketing and growing their business as they are. They learn from each other, they brainstorm, they share ideas and they help each other out. And that's what masterminding is all about. The key is setting up some ground rules, or some mastermind do's and don'ts to keep the group on track
Are you involved in a Mastermind group? If you are, I'd love to hear how it's helping you and your business. I'd also love to know if you've set ground rules to keep the group focused.
Marketing Success Podcast: Mastermind Do's and Don'ts
Click Here to Download MP3/Audio
(length 3:52 minutes)
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